you are much slower when the numbers are close, like five and six, than when they are further apart, like five and nine, and you also make more errors. This distance effect32 is

To recognize speech, for example, one must abstract away from the specifics of the speaker’s voice. This is achieved by forcing a neural network to use the same connections in different frequency bands, whether the voice is low or high. Reducing the number of parameters that must be adjusted leads to greater speeds and better generalization to new

information: it can only replay what it has already experienced. To learn a skill as complex as a new language, the only thing that works is practice during the day, then sleep during the night to reactivate and consolidate what we acquired.

Attention is the gateway to learning: virtually no information will be memorized if it has not previously been amplified by attention and awareness.

Random exploration, stochastic curiosity, and noisy neuronal firing all play an essential role in learning for Homo sapiens.

An unconscious image enters sensory areas but creates only a modest wave of activity in the prefrontal cortex. Attention, concentration, processing depth, and conscious awareness transform this small wave into a neuronal tsunami that invades the prefrontal cortex and maximizes subsequent memorization.8

what matters most is to restore their desire to learn by offering them stimulating problems carefully tailored to their current level.

They store each episode through synaptic changes, so we can remember it later.

The more an axon is used, the more layers this sheath develops, thus insulating it better and better, allowing it to transmit information at a higher speed.